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Book Description

One crisp, clear day, across a cobbled Oxford street, Raymond Greatorex catches sight of Beatrice Kopus. Raymond, a brilliant but ageing don whose specialty is Nietzsche, has withdrawn into a lonely world of scholarship. Beatrice is in Oxford researching Virginia Woolf, and distancing herself from her husband, Walter. When Beatrice reappears in Raymond's life, they embark on a love affair.

Beatrice becomes convinced of a link between Friedrich Nietzsche, Louise von Salomé - the young Russian émigré who bewitched him - and Virginia Woolf. As Walter faces ruin in his glittering career, Beatrice and Raymond seek refuge in the past. Stories of Nietzsche's madness and his obsession with von Salomé become intertwined with those of Raymond's ancestors, and their beautiful, crumbling home on the Welsh borders.

But there are even greater mysteries linking the past to the present, and in their quest to find one set of answers, Beatrice and Raymond stand to uncover a secret that will profoundly change their understanding of who they really are.

One crisp, clear day, across a cobbled Oxford street, Raymond Greatorex catches sight of Beatrice Kopus. Raymond, a brilliant but ageing don whose specialty is Nietzsche, has withdrawn into a lonely world of scholarship. Beatrice is in Oxford researching Virginia Woolf, and distancing herself from her husband, Walter. When Beatrice reappears in Raymond's life, they embark on a love affair.

Beatrice becomes convinced of a link between Friedrich Nietzsche, Louise von Salomé - the young Russian émigré who bewitched him - and Virginia Woolf. As Walter faces ruin in his glittering career, Beatrice and Raymond seek refuge in the past. Stories of Nietzsche's madness and his obsession with von Salomé become intertwined with those of Raymond's ancestors, and their beautiful, crumbling home on the Welsh borders.

But there are even greater mysteries linking the past to the present, and in their quest to find one set of answers, Beatrice and Raymond stand to uncover a secret that will profoundly change their understanding of who they really are.

Product Description

Review

a wonderfully constructed edifice; ideas, possibilities, emotions, dreams bounce and echo from one to another, creating a subtle meditation on the limitations of and the potential for love and transcendence (Tim Pears Author of Landed and In the Place of Fallen Leaves)

A Book for All and None [is] a work grand enough in its ambition to house not only a trio of modern characters but also characterizations of Nietzsche, Salome, their mutual friend, Paul Ree; and occupying a room not quite of her own, Virginia Woolf...Morgan seems determined to show just what, in her first novel, she can carry off...she masters her disparate materials impressively...[the] novel unfolds like a work of paper-sharp origami to reveal its incredible secret. (TLS)

This intensely academic novel is stuffed to bursting with good things... Past and present are very neatly plaited together (THE TIMES)

Morgan manages that symphonic trick of weaving her parallel narratives into a spell-binding, effortlessly propulsive unity (THE INDEPENDENT)

Morgan's novel echoes AS Byatt's 'Possession' but has a contemporary edge all its own (TIME OUT)

This debut novel of love, madness and creativity is written with eloquence and artistry. (MAIL ON SUNDAY)

Woven into this ambitious brainteaser of a novel is the beginning of Nietzche's intense, obsessive relationship with Lou von Salomé in 1882, Woolf's Pembrokeshire sojourn of 1908, and the origins of her first book, The Voyage Out... it is unashamedly intellectual and sensually written. (THE GUARDIAN)

Reflecting its modernist influences, A Book for All and None is a novel of ideas and aesthetics, exquisite in its descriptive passages, but driven by a tension between the cerebral and more fundamental emotional needs. (Jonathan Ruppin WE LOVE THIS BOOK)

A beautifully written debut novel from Monmouthshire-born Clare Morgan, A Book for All and None brings Virginia Woolf and Freidrich Nietzsche to life in a modern love affair set partly in Pembrokeshire and the Welsh borders. (Steve Dube WESTERN MAIL (Cardiff))

Book Description

A beautiful, haunting literary debut from an extraordinary talent and future prize-winner.

This is a novel about the several intricately linked lives: Walter, a construction tycoon; his wife Beatrice, an academic dedicated to researching Virginia Woolf; her friend Raymond, an academic dedicated to researching Nietzsche; Virginia Woolf herself; Nietzsche himself; and Raymond's ancestors. That makes at least 6 intertwined stories related in parallel. The book is expertly constructed so I have no complaint with the amount of skipping between threads, although the author does have a soap-like habit of doing it at contrived moments to generate suspense.

The prose style is extremely unusual and if you don't like it you should definitely give the book a miss. To give an idea, here are some examples:

"The ghosts. Chief among these were perhaps the ghosts of himself, the various versions of what he was...His likenesses, more or less him to one degree or another, accompanied him. He saw himself through the glass of time, first brightly and then darkly, diminishing in size and power right back through his babyhood...back through into the darkness where he was nothing but a jot." (p109)

"For he knows that this is his day, this is his moment. His footsteps are even now merging with Nietzsche's. He can feel the affliction. His head gets larger on his neck and his blood chants upwards." (p235)

"He understood what she said only with a time lag. The words came hurtling into his brain as though a space had been prepared for them. Perhaps, he thought afterwards, the space had always been waiting." (p239)

I was tempted to dismiss this as pretentious art-speak but the more I read the more I felt that nearly every flight of eloquence (and there are many of them) was relevant, appropriate, clever and interesting. In other words, this is superb writing, and I give it 5 stars for that reason - but I do have a reservation: the book rarely succeeded in making me care about any of the characters. At times it felt like a masterclass in creative writing, such as one might expect from someone who is not a writer but a teacher of writers - which in fact she is.Read more ›

This was a frustrating book in many ways. Right from the start, Clare Morgan showed her mastery of descriptive prose. The story, however, failed to stir up my interest. The book falls into the realm of creative nonfiction; Clare Morgan took key facts about Friedrich Nietzsche, Virginia Woolf and Lou de Salomé (who had complicated interdependent relationships), and filled in the blanks from her imagination. While this task demanded admirable academic rigour and creativity, the old-fashioned style of writing comes across as overly wordy and formal, which keeps the reader at a distance rather than drawing him/her into the story. This was the case for 139 pages: style over substance.

Then a change happened. From out of the blue, a chapter of such poignancy that it set all my senses alight. Morgan's description of how Love came to Earth, helped by her cousin Chaos, is steeped in myth and majesty. The writing here is neither old-fashioned nor modern, but timeless. The chapter is nothing short of captivating.

I wish I could say that the rest of the book maintains a similar level of brilliance; it doesn't, although from that point on the story is more consistently engaging. There are flashes of spectacular prose, especially when describing Nietzsche's dark moods and uncompromising beliefs.

The parallels between the modern-day characters (who often act as the story's narrators) and the historical figures are cleverly written. There are, however, too many loose ends for my liking. OK, leave one loose end to let the reader make up his/her mind about the way in which a particular plotline plays out. Leaving a plethora of loose ends flapping in the wind, though, is lazy writing that fails to leave the reader with an enduring sense of satisfaction.

I'm happy to have read the book. I'm better off for having done so. If Clare Morgan had spent more time distilling the story to its essence, weeding out stuffy, unnecessary formalities and sticking to the spellbinding prose of which she is capable, this could have been one of the greatest books ever written. As is, it's a worthwhile read which takes too long to get into its stride and too often veers off on irrelevant tangents.Read more ›

This first review from our family is from Jane, my wife, who got to the book first. I will add my comments when I have finished reading the book, which I am really enjoying.

Jane writes: I had heard "A Book for All and for None" by Clare Morgan described as "academic", so it was with great trepidation that I began to read it.... I am most definitely not an academic!

So it is to all like minded souls that I appeal... please don't be put off selecting this book!

I found it fascinating, a real page turner, very engaging ..... a book I feel that can be read on many levels, so much so that I am reading it again!... I just didn't realise just how luxuriously descriptive language could be!

Clare has taken me on a journey, full of twists and turns, never feeling bored ... or completely out of my depth! And if I thought I had missed something, I just happily back tracked ... she has a wonderful ability to paint the most fantastic pictures with words.... And to make it a hugely enjoyable read.... The story(ies) just flow from the page...

It is a real voyage of discovery... I am so looking forward to Clare's next novel!

This is a beautifully written and meticulously composed literary novel. It successfully develops intertwined narratives of past and present as it artistically blends historical characters to fiction. The scenes are constructed with great precision and subtlety, and I found myself immersed in the character's world and intrigued by the plot as the story unveils the mysteries of the relationship between Beatrice and Raymond against a background link between Nietzsche, Salome and Woolf. The emotions, lives, dreams and possibilities of both worlds reverberate against one another as the affair between Beatrice and Raymond becomes ultimately an investigation of who they really are. A great story and a delightful read!